Kids are Picky but More Loyal to Mobile Games

Building a sustainable mobile games business requires a solid ARM (Acquisition, Retention, Monetization) model. While user acquisition and monetization are fairly straight-forward processes that can easily be measured, with retention, things are far more complicated. Retention rates are probably the biggest challenge of the mobile gaming industry.

As the world’s largest mobile kids network, KIDOZ has taken this challenge head on. We have researched data from over 1,500 apps and over 200 publishers. So what does retention look like for kids and how does it compare to retention for adults?

First Experience – Kids are Picky

While only 40% of adult users who try a mobile game will continue playing it the next day, with kids the rate is even lower – 33%. Kids are clearly more picky and quicker to judge if a game suits them. They show little patience if their first experience was not pleasant and are less willing to give the game a second chance.

A Week After – A Change in Trend

When comparing a week after the date of install, an interesting picture emerges. The retention rate for both grown-ups and kids stands at 20%. However, when comparing the drop in retention from the first day after install date, we can see that the drop in retention for adults is 50%, while the drop for kids is only 40%. Therefore, kids loyalty after first time usage is higher by 10 percentage points.

A Month After – Kids are More Loyal

Comparing the retention rates after 30 days, kids become clearly more loyal to the games they are playing, showing a retention rate of 14%, which is 40% higher than the 10% retention rate shown by adults.

Conclusion

It appears that kids’ adoption behavior for apps is similar to their adoption behavior for new foods. It’s always a challenge to entice children to eat something new; however, once they like it, they will stick to it for a long time.

For developers of kids’ apps, investing in the friendliest first time experience is crucial for their business and for the app’s longevity and ability to retain users, and it should be taken into account when designing games for kids.

About KIDOZ

KIDOZ is the world’s fastest-growing content discovery and recommendation platform for kids, reaching over 50 million children worldwide. Starting as a personal project by a father who wanted to create a way for his daughter to safely play games and watch videos online, KIDOZ has become a global network helping millions of kids find content they love and enabling hundreds of brands and developers to monetize and distribute content to kids.